This Rough Magic
by Sara Wolfe
Summary: Redemption is a rocky road - as Eustace is about to find out.
1. In the Dungeons

**Author's Note: **This is the first of two fics I've started after seeing _The Voyage of the Dawn Treader_. This one focuses on Eustace's thoughts during the movie. I am following the plot line established in the movie, but I'm expanding on all of the scenes that were short-shrifted during the movie, along with all of the ones that weren't. Hope you all enjoy the ride.

**This Rough Magic**

**Chapter One: In the Dungeons**

Narnia was no magical land, Eustace decided. It was Hell.

It really wasn't fair. He was a good boy. He always (okay, sometimes) listened to his parents, he did well in school, he kept his room neat as a pin, and he'd won Experiment House's personal hygiene award two years running.

And where did it get him?

Trapped in this dank, dark pit with a bunch of people who smelled like they hadn't bathed in days. He barely had enough space to sit comfortably; every time he moved he was bumping into one person or another. And, though he could hardly believe it, he was going to be sold as a slave in the morning.

If he even survived to the morning.

"We're going to die, down here," he announced, and someone on the far side of the pit burst into tears. He couldn't see the person through the crowd, but it sounded like a child.

"We are not going to die," came Lucy's quiet, calm voice, her tone soothing and gentle. "We are going to be rescued, and everyone is going to be fine."

Eustace snorted, derisively, but before he could say anything, Lucy very pointedly brought her booted foot down onto his own. He yelped in pain as his toes were momentarily but still painfully crushed beneath her foot, his soft house shoe offering no protection when compared to the sturdy boots she was wearing.

His eyes watering with pain, he looked up and saw Lucy glaring at him, her eyes boring into him, fiercely. She seemed to be almost daring him to say what was on his mind, but he kept his mouth shut. If only to save his other foot from a similar fate.

But, it seemed that others in the pit with them were having the same thought as he was.

"There's no rescue coming for us, little girl," a man's voice rasped out. "We're all going up on the auction block in the morning; Gov'ner Gumpas isn't likely to let us go free, now."

"Edmund and Caspian are still out there," Lucy said, her voice confident. "They will free themselves and come for us."

"If they're not already dead," Eustace snapped, nastily.

Then, he almost, _almost_ regretted the thoughtless words at the shocked look that momentarily flashed across his cousin's face. But, Lucy regained her composure, quickly, her face smoothing over into an emotionless mask.

"If those monsters have hurt my brother or Caspian," she said, softly, "I will give them reason to regret it."

There was something dark and dangerous in her usually laughing eyes, and Eustace was sharply reminded of what he'd seen in the bell tower. He never could have imagined that this seemingly delicate, gentle girl could wield a sword with such accuracy. But, he'd seen her fighting just as well as Edmund and Caspian, holding her own well against the slavers that had threatened them.

And now, she looked like she was ready to take them on, again. With her bare hands, if necessary.

"I'm sure they're not dead," Eustace said, gruffly, if only to get the scary look out of her eyes.

But, he didn't believe his own words. He'd seen, although he was sure Lucy hadn't, given her earlier statement, that the men who'd been holding Edmund had hit him over the head to get him to stop fighting them. He'd seen his cousin slump limply in the men's arms, blood flowing from the gash in his temple from where he'd been struck with the butt of a dagger.

Edmund might have called his reading useless, but Eustace knew things. Like just how damaging a blow to the head truly was to a person, how dangerous it was if they were unconscious for longer than a few seconds. And since Edmund hadn't stirred as he and Caspian were being dragged away, Eustace knew that his cousin had been entering that dangerous range of unconsciousness.

And, though he didn't want to admit it to himself, he was worried about the older boy.

The sound of Lucy's voice suddenly jerked him out of his thoughts, and he looked up to see his cousin regarding him with a frank, curious look on her face.

"Are you all right?" she asked, concern in her voice. "You looked like you were a million miles away."

"I'm fine," Eustace snapped at her, wishing with all of his heart that he really was a million miles away.

"Eustace, if you want to talk," Lucy offered, but he brushed her offer off with a cold glare.

"Talk about what?" he snapped. "Talk about how we're going to be sold as slaves in the morning? About how I'm never going to see Mother and Father, again? About how Edmund and Caspian are supposed to somehow escape from a prison and come riding to our rescue?"

"Eustace-" Lucy sighed, and she sounded like she was at the end of her rope.

"You know," Eustace went on, ignoring the tone he could hear in Lucy's voice, "if you think about it, this is all Caspian's fault."

"What?" Lucy demanded, incredulously.

"We should have stayed on the ship," Eustace told her, angrily. "But, no, _King_ Caspian just had to go exploring! I even told him we should have left-"

"We had no way of knowing of the dangers that awaited us," Lucy protested, and Eustace was reminded of the family he'd seen hiding in one of the abandoned buildings.

He wondered, briefly, if things would have turned out differently if he'd warned everyone about the people he'd seen. If maybe they could have defended themselves against the slavers.

But, he just as quickly dismissed the thought. This wasn't his responsibility; it was Caspian's. Their safety – and the danger they were in now – was on the King's head. It wasn't his fault, and he steadfastly ignored the irritating little voice at the back of his mind that kept whispering _maybe_ and _what if_.

Lucy sighed, again, and it seemed like she was going to say something else. But, she just shook her head, biting back whatever she wanted to say. Instead, she leaned against him, throwing an arm around his shoulders as they sat in the dark.

Eustace considered shrugging her arm off his shoulders and pushing her away. But, it was getting cold down in the pit as the sun went down, and he was warm where he was pressed up against Lucy. So, he just let her be, not even protesting when her head dropped down to rest on his shoulder.

After a while, Lucy's breathing slowed and deepened, evening out in sleep. Around them, the other captives were also falling asleep, filling the pit with a cacophony of snores, grunts, and other night noises.

Eustace, for his part, tried to sleep. But, his overactive imagination kept conjuring up scenarios of what could happen in the morning, each one more horrible than the last. Finally, he just gave up and spent the rest of the night staring into the darkness.


	2. To the Auction Block

**Author's Note: **Thank you so much to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. I love hearing what everyone thinks.

**Chapter Two: To the Auction Block**

They were awakened in the morning by the sound of banging. Eustace jerked up from where he'd fallen asleep, leaning against Lucy, squinting in the thin sunlight that streamed in through the bars of their cell. The banging, as it turned out, was one of the guards, knocking against the bars with a stout stick.

"Wake up, you lot," the man growled, his words punctuated by several sharp slams of the stick against the bars.

"We're up," Eustace muttered, and then he winced when the guard jabbed him sharply in the ribs with the stick.

_'Next time,'_ he thought to himself, darkly, as he glared at the man, _'don't sleep next to the doors.'_

He steadfastly ignored the little voice in the back of his mind that reminded him that there wasn't going to be a next time. He was going to be sold as a _slave_ – just the thought of the word made him shudder with fear – and there was nothing that he could do about it.

Beside him, Lucy was blinking in the sunlight, her hand shading her eyes as she looked over at their captor. Then, disentangling herself from Eustace, she stood and walked over to the door of their cell, crossing her arms over her chest as she stared the much bigger man down.

"We are all awake," she said, quietly, even as the man was lifting his stick to bang against the bars of the cell, again. "There is no need to keep making this kind of noise."

The man blinked, clearly taken aback by her calm composure, and Lucy used his momentary surprise to her advantage.

"We require something to eat," she told the man. "And water and cloths so that we may wash up."

The man laughed, a deep braying sound that filled the small space and made Eustace's ears hurt. Then, the man poked his stick through the bars, hitting Lucy in the chest and forcing her backward a step.

"Slaves don't need food," he sneered at her. "And you don't need to be clean, either."

"Then we're not going to make a very good showing on the auction block, are we?" Lucy asked, a challenging note in her voice as she refused to back down.

Personally, Eustace thought that she'd gone crazy, that the guard was going to punish all of them for her impudent behavior. And, as the man's face turned red with anger, and he raised his stick in the air to strike Lucy, Eustace had to resist the urge to say _'I told you so,'_.

But, he was surprised when a quiet voice halted the guard's hand.

"Feed the slaves, Errech," came a man's voice, and the slave-master, who Eustace had heard called Pug, stepped out of the shadows.

"But, sir," the guard blustered, and Pug held up a hand, silencing him.

"Give them their food, and their wash water," he instructed, his eyes never leaving Lucy as he stared at the girl with a strange expression on his face. "You certainly are a spirited one, aren't you?" he asked, quietly, speaking only to Lucy. "Perhaps I should keep you off the auction block, keep you for myself."

"I would sooner die first," Lucy replied, her voice so quiet that Eustace could barely hear her.

"We'll see how you feel after a couple of months under the thumb of one of those boars, out there," Pug said, and then he whirled around and stalked away from their cell. "Make sure the girl is first on the block," he called back, his voice echoing down the hallway.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

Half an hour later, Eustace found himself being unceremoniously dumped into the back of a horse-drawn cart along with the rest of the captives. He fell heavily to the floor of the cart, unable to catch himself with his hands bound in front of him, and he grudgingly accepted Lucy's help in getting back to his feet. Then, at the guard's direction, he settled along the side of the cart in a line with everyone else.

The guard had climbed into the cart, chaining everyone's shackled wrists together, and the man jerked Eustace's hands up roughly when he didn't move fast enough. After he'd finished chaining all of the captives together, the guard jumped out of the cart and strode around to the front. A second later, the cart jerked forward, moving over the rough, cobblestone streets.

Sitting beside him in the cart, Lucy was completely still, completely silent. There was a grim look in her eyes as she stared straight ahead, and Eustace wondered if she was thinking about Pug's menacing threat.

"Peter and I were sold as slaves, once," she said, softly, and he looked over at her in surprise.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, and she finally looked over at him.

"It was long ago," she said, quietly. "Even by our reckoning of time."

"What happened?" Eustace asked, curious despite himself.

"It was in the third year of our reign," Lucy told him, and Eustace rolled his eyes.

He'd heard more than one of the sailors referring to both of his cousins as Majesty, heard them whispering in awed tones about Kings and Queens of Old. He'd dismissed the whispers as just fanciful stories; there was no way that his cousins were any kind of royalty. And he couldn't believe that Lucy was continuing the story now, of all times.

But, he'd rather listen to some nonsense tale than think about what was going to happen to them, so he didn't interrupt Lucy's recitation.

"Edmund was sick with a fever, and he and Susan stayed behind at the Cair," Lucy went on, her voice oddly hypnotic and soothing. "So, Peter and I went to Archenland by ourselves for our annual visit. But, we never made it. We were captured shortly after we entered Archenland's borders, stolen away from our guard in the middle of the night."

"But, you obviously escaped," Eustace felt compelled to point out, wondering if Lucy's story was going to result in some wild plan to save all of them.

"Not at first," Lucy told him. "We were both sent up on the auction block, and sold to separate owners. I didn't see Peter for another month until we were rescued."

"Who captured you?" a young voice asked, and Eustace looked past Lucy to see a girl at the front of the cart listening to Lucy's story.

"We never learned that," Lucy said, pitching her voice so that the others could hear her. "We only knew who we'd been sold to. We were sold at an auction in Calormen to some people of a distant land; I was bought by a wealthy lady to work in her house, and Peter was purchased by some high-ranking military officer and conscripted into service for their troops."

"You said you were rescued?" a new voice spoke up, although Eustace didn't see the speaker.

"We were," Lucy answered. "Edmund and Susan tracked us down, along with half of our army. They raided the lady's house to rescue me, and we fled back to Narnia."

"What about Peter?" Eustace was only aware that he'd voiced the question out loud after Lucy looked over at him, a surprised look on her face.

"He was still with the army," she said, quietly. "They'd threatened my life, to get him to obey them, and he was fighting as one of their soldiers. And they joined with Calormene troops to march on Narnia, to attack us. But they didn't expect to meet our troops already amassed, or for Peter to turn on them once he saw us."

"So you won?" the first girl asked, and Lucy smiled at the child.

"We won," she said, softly. "Everything ended happily."

"Will we be rescued, now?" the girl asked, hesitantly, and Eustace saw the smile on his cousin's face falter for just a second before she answered.

"We must have faith that everything will turn out as it should," she said, a non-answer if Eustace had ever heard one.

The cart jolted to a stop, suddenly, sending everyone slamming against each other. Eustace fell heavily against Lucy, struggling to get back up without being able to use his hands.

He looked toward the end of the cart, expecting to see their captors coming to unload them from the cart. But, his attention was caught by the sight of another cart rumbling down the road, and he awkwardly elbowed Lucy to get her attention.

"More slaves?" she guessed, but then she frowned as the other cart passed theirs without stopping.

"Maybe they're the lucky ones," Eustace muttered under his breath, but the rest of his words were cut off by the sound of shouting.

There was a man and a young girl running through the streets, chasing after the other cart. They'd almost caught up when one of the guards patrolling the streets slammed the butt of his staff into the man's stomach, making him collapse from pain. The man shouted something indistinct after the departing cart, catching the girl before she could run past him. Then he hugged the girl to him, holding her tightly in his arms.

Craning his head around, Eustace watched the progress of the second cart until it had stopped at the docks. Then, the people inside were rapidly unloaded from the cart and hustled onto a long, low rowboat.

"What are they doing?" he asked, baffled, and beside him, Lucy looked just as confused.

"I have no idea," she said, softly, watching as the boat was shoved away from the dock, sailing slowly out into the open water. "They can't be letting them go, they're all still chained up-"

Then, her voice trailed off, her eyes widening in horror as a sickly-looking green mist emerged from the water. The mist expanded until it had completely covered the boat, and then it just as slowly disappeared. And the water was empty where the boat had once stood.

"Where are they?" Lucy gasped, and Eustace stared after the vanished boat in shock.

"They're sacrifices," a nasty voice spoke up, and Eustace turned around to see Pug watching them from the end of the cart. "It's what's going to happen to you if you don't behave."

"Sacrifices to what?" Lucy demanded, a tremor in her voice, but Pug ignored her.

"Get them out of the cart," he ordered one of the guards. "We have an auction to begin."


End file.
